A Spell of Swallows

by Sarah Harrison

  ‘They haven’t found Boots.’

  ‘Never mind about that,’ said Edith Clay, plainly sick of hearing about it. ‘These things happen.’

  Ashe bade them good afternoon and went on his way.

  At the foot of the memorial, butterflies flickered and trembled over the simple wreaths and bunches of flowers which had long since wilted. He went over to the corner where the old graves were and fought his way through. Lifting the stone lid made him break out in a sweat. Quickly, he did what he had to do. All still well at the moment—just. As always he checked carefully that no one was around before scrambling back out and emerging from the trees. Then he dusted himself down and smoothed his hair.

  The vicarage had a slumbering appearance as he walked round it. There was no one in the garden and no voices to be heard. The study window was closed but the long window on the turn of the staircase stood ajar (Ashe had made it his business to acquaint himself with the geography of the house). Now he walked down the side furthest from the church, between the garage and the window where he had replaced the rotten sill. In front of him now he saw the shed, a lot less ramshackle now with the window cleaned, the boards shored up, and a coat of dark green paint. He had put away all but two of the chairs where they’d been sitting out the week before, but the harsh sunlight revealed a few cigarette ends still lying on the sparse, desiccated grass. With an expression of distaste, he picked them up and shied them into the undergrowth. The blossom on the apple trees, he noticed, had been replaced by small green apples. As Ashe plucked the dead heads off the climbing roses, he reflected that it was a pity he wouldn’t be here come late autumn, when the apple trees would need pruning; no one else would do it and they’d never fruit better till it happened . . .

  A narrow border edged the foot of the back wall, beneath the kitchen window, and he crouched to prise out a couple of wizened, hardy weeds. Straightening up, he looked into the kitchen—dark and tidy, apart from a couple of used plates and their accompanying cutlery on the table in the centre.

  He took a couple of steps back and looked up towards the Mariners’ bedroom window. It was a bay, that hung out slightly like the bridge of a ship. Every panel had been thrown open carelessly, without so much as a latch fastened. He could have thrown a stone straight into that room and be gone before they had a chance to look out. As he looked, one of the swallows appeared from its nest under the gable and hesitated for a second before launching itself on its lightning arc towards the trees.

  Softly, Ashe tried the kitchen door. It was not locked and he entered. Inside the air was deliciously cool. Drops of sweat trickled refreshingly over his skin. He moved through the kitchen like a ghost, touching nothing, placing each foot with a rolling motion, padding like a cat.

  In the hall he paused, and looked up the stairs. On the wall at the top of the first flight an oblong shaft of sunlight slanted from the open window at the front of the house. He felt completely in command, as if he could see through walls and ceilings, as though he himself were invisible and could be surprised by nothing. He did not need to open doors, to snoop—he knew more about this house than its owners did. Watching was his greatest talent. Watching and observing. All the time he was working here, repairing windows, refreshing paint and woodwork, tidying the garden, collecting and carrying, he kept his eyes wide open and his mouth shut. The satisfying thought occurred to him that he had the measure of this place, and the people who lived here.

  Stealthily, almost drifting, he ascended the stairs. By the open window he paused. A bee had come in and was buzzing and stumbling against the glass, unaware of how easy escape was. Ashe pulled the window shut and continued to the first floor.

  The door of their bedroom was not completely closed. From the landing at the head of the stairs he could see the end of the bed and one pale foot. As he watched, the foot moved, and turned the other way, the toes flexing slightly as it did so. The movement was accompanied by the metallic clicking of the bed frame and a sigh, very slightly vocalised—Mrs Mariner was awake.

  He moved along the landing banister rail to where he could see directly into the room. The Mariners lay naked, back to back. He was certainly asleep, with one leg and one arm bent, as if about to bowl a cricket ball. She lay with two pillows beneath her head, and her hands tucked beneath them. Her glasses lay open on the table next to the bed. The hair around her face looked wet. She was staring out of the window. If Ashe had thrown that stone, he might have hit her in the face.

  She withdrew her right hand from beneath the pillow and tucked it between her thighs. She cleared her throat and swallowed. He sensed that her mind was working, strenuously. She was fully awake, not even relaxed, and might at any moment decide to get up.

  He withdrew, taking the first few steps backwards as if by retracing his footsteps exactly he could avoid making any sound. Then he turned and went back down the stairs, stepping over and between the loose boards as though negotiating stepping stones. Inside the window the bee lay buzzing feebly, legs twitching, with no strength left to escape. He pushed the window open, exactly as he had found it.

  Once out of the kitchen door he returned via the same route to the front of the house, and there to his surprise was Susan Clay, hovering uncertainly in the gateway.

  Unlike Ashe, Susan wasn’t surprised by his sudden appearance—she took people as she found them, and was pleased to see her friend. The sight of his funny face coming towards her made her feel safe. He always understood her and was never cross or shouty. She was never intentionally disobedient, but this time her attention had wandered and she’d wandered with it. Now she found herself at the entrance to the vicarage drive without really knowing how she got there. Her head had been full of Mr and Mrs Mariner and how lonely they were, and she had been drawn to them. She held her doll beneath her arm, so it was slightly damp with sweat.

  ‘You decided to come then.’

  She nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘You go along in then, the kitchen door’ll be open.’

  ‘Will you come?’

  ‘No, I’m off on that walk I told you about. It’ll be cooler in an hour or so.’

  He began walking away from her, whistling a little tune. She watched him, torn. He glanced over his shoulder and winked with his good eye.

  ‘Give my best to Mr Mariner.’

  Obediently—for she was by nature an obedient girl—she did as she was told.

  Ashe went up the hill fast and steadily, swinging his arms as if he were on a route march. He was bursting with energy in spite of the heat and he pushed himself hard. He enjoyed the pain in his legs as the incline steepened, and when the sweat began to run into his eyes he undid his kerchief and tied it round his head like a gypsy.

  He entered the cool of the woods and kept going, through the muffling dappled shadow and down the other side towards the next valley where the little river widened and there was that flat, shimmering ford where he’d bathed. He was retracing his steps just as he had in the vicarage an hour ago, rewinding a spool of film. The walk had become a ritual, with a ritual’s prescribed moves and unquestioned rhythm. Though tempted, he did not run down the hill but maintained a steady, military pace which made his thigh muscles and knees complain. The trees on either side of him stood like a guard of honour. Once or twice a sharp scrabbling and rustling sounded as some small creature fled his advancing footsteps. A flurry of wood pigeons took off from the branches; the clattering fusillade of wing-beats made his scalp prickle.

  At the bottom of the hill he paused to get his bearings. When he looked up to where he’d come from he was surprised at how steep the incline was. No wonder his legs hurt. With the wood rising up behind him, rank on rank, he felt at last cut off from the village. And now he could hear the thin, silvery ripple of the river to his right, and made his way towards it.

  He reached the bank a little above the ford. Even here the Eaden at its centre was no more than eighteen inches deep, but the bustling current carved the surface into thick, sil
ky ropes. Sitting down on the grass he pulled off his boots and socks and waded in. The water was icy, and tugged strongly at his ankles, but he didn’t allow himself to be hurried by it as he moved downstream to the ford. He was pleased by the notion of the river slipping round him, touching him, and continuing on its way to the village. He might be out of sight, but he was still in touch.

  In the space of a few yards the river widened and became not just shallower but paler, changing from green to amber as the shingle grew closer to the surface. Ashe’s feet looked very white. Here and there fine green waterweed streamed and fluttered like hair. In the centre of the ford he stopped and turned a slow, full circle, on the spot. This was where the girl had been when she saw him. Ahead was the broad, shallow step over which the river slipped like an unfurling bolt of silk, and over there at the side the deep water from which he’d emerged to give the girl the fright of her life. To be fair he’d been pretty surprised himself to discover that round-eyed, white-faced audience of one, petrified by shock in mid-river. But his recovery had taken only a split second, and then there had been the exhilaration of watching her flee. Ashe was not by nature an exhibitionist, but that little incident had given him an insight into the exhibitionist’s power and pleasure. Those pathetic specimens who got their excitement through displaying their private parts to strange females . . . He’d been amused to discover, and to remember, that the girl’s terrified reaction and her headlong flight had given him an erection.

  He tugged off his clothes and threw them on to the bank before wading across, and then sitting, arms extended, in the freezing water, pushing his heels into the gravel to anchor himself. He felt the need to urinate and did so, glorying in the way the fluid was snatched away by the current—another message to Eadenford, the more satisfying for being secret.

  This time no one disturbed him. After a couple of minutes he was almost numb and got out. He dressed carefully and set off on his return journey, now following the longer, but easier, route along the river bank.

  As usual, Saxon was dressed and downstairs first, to find Susan Clay sitting patiently in the kitchen. She gave him a fright. He had no idea how long she had been there, it was slightly disturbing to think of it. She was so passive, so phlegmatic, in many ways more dogged than their own dog had been. When he asked what she was doing there, her answer had been devastatingly plain:

  ‘Waiting for you.’

  ‘But Susan . . .’ He heard the exasperation leak into his voice and made a determined effort to eliminate it. ‘Susan, it’s Sunday afternoon. Do your parents know that you’re here?’

  ‘I asked,’ she said, with a worried look.

  ‘They don’t, do they?’

  She shook her head. ‘Then you really mustn’t come wandering up, and into the house whenever you feel like it. They will be worried. We shall worry—Mrs Mariner and I. You don’t want to upset people, do you?’

  ‘No . . .’ To his horror he saw tears well up in her eyes. ‘I want to help.’

  ‘Now, now, you mustn’t cry.’ To his great relief, Saxon heard Vivien coming down. Awkwardly, he put his arm across Susan’s shoulders. This was a good girl, he told himself—well behaved and well brought up, a strangely affectionate girl. He patted her back, and this was how Vivien found them when she came in.

  ‘Susan was here,’ he said. ‘I’ve no idea for how long.’

  Gentle interrogation revealed that all Susan had done was to sit down in the kitchen and wait, in the hope of making herself useful, so when five minutes later Edith Clay knocked on the front door, Saxon (left holding the baby, Vivien having disappeared) felt obliged to come to her daughter’s defence.

  ‘She shouldn’t have wandered off without permission,’ he said, ‘but she’s done nothing else wrong. In fact it was a very generous impulse, which it would be wrong to punish.’

  ‘We’ll see about that,’ said Edith.

  Saxon knew that she was right to be protective, but the look of utter misery on Susan’s face prompted him to say: ‘Now that you know she’s here, and all’s well, why don’t you let her stay for a little while? I’m sure we can find something for her to do, and I promise we’ll see her safely home.’

  ‘I don’t know, Reverend . . .’ Edith’s brow was still stormy. Saxon was still enjoying the warm glow from his success the previous Sunday. He laid his hand on Susan’s shoulder.

  ‘We’re very fond of Susan.’

  ‘Well.’ Edith leaned forward and wagged a finger in her daughter’s face, ‘You be good, you hear? And don’t you ever do this again!’

  Vivien was in her room at the back, and anyway Saxon knew that she was not herself. So it fell to him to occupy the girl.

  Interestingly, he found her to be an exceptionally amenable and agreeable assistant. Preparing the church for evensong was not a complicated or arduous task—hardly a task at all, really, since the church warden always left things ready after morning service—but he made more of it than was necessary to satisfy the girl’s desire to help.

  Once given an instruction, Susan carried it out at once, and to the letter. No detail escaped her. For instance, he could say, demonstrating with his hands: ‘I want the hymn books laid this way round, and this far apart,’ and that was precisely what would happen. She would actually place her hands so, as he had done, to make sure she got it right. There was something soothing in this perfect, assiduous obedience—to have simple tasks performed well for their own sake. Or—he considered this—for him, because he had asked it. In Susan’s obedience he perceived a kind of metaphor for his own priestly role: ‘Who sweeps a floor for thy name’s sake . . .’ and so on.

  Nor, once employed, was she any trouble. She did not talk, she made neither comment nor complaint. She was content. Even as he framed the word Saxon realised what an agreeable and obliging quality that was, not only for the contented person but for those around them. The small, gentle sounds of Susan going about her business were music to his ears. He was beginning to appreciate why Vivien always welcomed her so readily. Here was a person who longed to be useful and was entirely without self-interest. Susan did not affect humility, she was humble.

  As he laid his sermon on the lectern in the pulpit he was able to look down on her as she arranged the hassocks, so that each hung from its hook on the back of the pew with its embroidery (courtesy of the Mothers’ Union) facing outwards. These small things pleased him. Order was not only desirable of itself, it was conducive to prayer, and serious thought. He decided to suggest to Vivien—and to the church wardens who would need a little more persuading—that Susan should be placed on the church cleaning roster. It would be so good for the girl herself, and she would be an undoubted asset.

  Now that she’d finished with the hassocks she sat down quietly in the front pew and waited for him to descend to her. Which, when he was ready, he did.

  ‘She’s been a very good girl and a great help,’ he told Mrs Clay when he took Susan home.

  ‘I’m glad to hear it, Reverend.’

  Edith spoke sternly, but Saxon could tell that she had calmed down. ‘I’d very much like it if she could help with the church cleaning from time to time, would you like to do that, Susan?’

  Susan nodded vigorously.

  ‘Very well, if you say so,’ said Edith. ‘No harm in giving it a try.’

  ‘In that case I shall arrange it. Goodbye, Susan.’

  ‘Say goodbye to the vicar!’

  Susan beamed. ‘ ’Bye, vicar.’

  Saxon permitted himself a little quiet self-congratulation on having handled a difficult situation well, and to everyone’s advantage. He only wished he could cheer his wife as easily.

  Vivien attended evensong, because Saxon had almost insisted that she should. He did not, in so many words, say that she should put herself in God’s hands, but that was the clear implication. She had never before minded going to church for Saxon’s sake, but this evening it seemed intolerable.

  When the service was over, she could not
bear to talk to anyone, and went straight outside, Her head ached fiercely and she stood with her fists pressed to her temples, her eyes tight shut.

  ‘Mrs Mariner.’

  She opened her eyes.

  Across the sunlit grass, through the lengthening shadow of the church tower, came John Ashe, walking slowly, with something in his arms.

  MESOPOTAMIA

  I do a lot of thinking as we stumble along. It occurs to me that there are different ways of losing people. For instance, a lot of families in England lost someone only a few hours ago at the so-called Battle of Ctesiphon—but they don’t even know it yet. That’s the best way, the cleanest way.

  The worst way is what happened with my parents. As far as I know I never loved them, but I took them for granted like kids do; we were a family, not story-book stuff, but no worse than most and a bit better than some. There was food on the table, and clean clothes, and I was doing all right at school.

  From the time my mother started doing what she did it was as though we were all being slowly poisoned, rotting away. But we didn’t die. I’m out here, so I suppose I’m likely to go first. As far as I know they’re still out there somewhere. If I cop one, I wonder if they’ll ever hear about it, and if they do, I wonder what they’ll think? Anyway, the point is that I lost them, but I’m worse than an orphan; my mother infected me with something I’ll never be cured of. The parents who get the telegram at least have their happy memories to keep them company.

  And now there’s Jarvis . . . We stop so I can get round the other side of him, give this shoulder a rest. It’s a balancing act, he’s a lot taller than me and his head’s lolling about; I don’t want him to keel over, I’m not sure I’d ever get him up again. Not sure either of us would.

  Hup! Done it.

  ‘You’re a good man, Ashe,’ he croaks.